Sir James Matheson lived from 17 October 1796 to 31 December 1878.
He was one of the founders of the Jardine Matheson trading empire and in 1842
purchased the Isle of Lewis, making
his home at Lews Castle in Stornoway, which he built. The
wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our
Historical Timeline.

After leaving university he followed in his father's footsteps and
became a trader in India. In 1828 he went into partnership with fellow Scot,
William Jardine, to run the established
trading company Magniac and Co. This proved to be a highly successful
partnership and on 1 July 1832 they formed Jardine, Matheson and Company Ltd.
with the aim of trading opium, tea and other goods to and from China, working
closely alongside the British East India Company. The following year the
British Parliament revoked monopoly rights of the British East India Company to
carry trade between Britain and China, and Jardine Mathesons rapidly displaced
them as the most important British trading firm in Asia.

By 1841, Jardine Mathesons had 19 clipper ships, the
intercontinental carriers of their day, compared with the 13 of their nearest
rivals. They also owned hundreds of small ships, junks and smaller craft. Key
areas of business included carriage of opium from India to China; trading
spices and sugar from the Philippines; and tea and silk from China; acting as
shipping and insurance agents and operators of port facilities. When the
Chinese tried to stop the flow of opium into their country because of its
serious impact on the population, William
Jardine (with support from many other British traders) persuaded the
British Government to declare war on China to enforce the resumption of the
trade. The war lasted from 1839 to 1842. The British duly won, and the flow of
opium into China was resumed, and with it the flow of profits to the trading
companies. The First Opium War also led to the colonisation of Hong Kong by the
British and their ownership of it until 1997.

In 1843 James Matheson succeeded William Jardine, who died in February, as
MP for Ashburton in Devon. On 9 November 1843 he married Mary Jane Percival.
The following year he purchased the Isle
of Lewis for £190,000. By the standards of the day, Matheson proved
to be an enlightened landlord who invested heavily in the island and introduced
a number of schemes to provide work and ease poverty. These included road
building and drainage schemes and they eased the impact on the island of the
potato famine by creating much needed employment. By 1850 he is said to have
spent £329,000 on the island. Between 1851 and 1855 he also assisted
1,771 people to emigrate: these departures seem to have been more genuinely
voluntary than most of Scotland's
clearances.

Between 1847 and 1851 Matheson built Lews Castle, described as a
Tudor Gothic mansion, which today still overlooks
Stornoway. In 1851 he was
rewarded for his efforts by being made Sir James Matheson, 1st Baronet of
Lewis. He ceased to be MP for Ashburton in 1847, and from 1852 to 1868 served
as the MP for Ross and
Cromarty, being eventually succeeded by his nephew Sir Alexander Matheson.
Sir James Matheson died without a direct heir in Menton in France in 1878 at
the age of 82.